#12 Wild Horses in the Wild West - Malargue to Chos Mala

A bit noisy at the beginning sorry!

After a day of rest we felt prepared to take on another long day of riding. It was another day of firsts: our first day riding on some serious gravel - 100 km; our first day stopping to allow horses to cross the road; and the first day leaving our bike while visiting an attraction in our bike gear; oh and our first petrol scare. There were definitely a few hairy moments on the gravel but we stayed upright for the entire ride.

One concern I had with the type of trip we are taking is that we would miss out on experiences due to the impracticalities of travelling by motorcycle. Without the ability to insure our bike security is of the utmost importance to us (as I was writing this someone commented on the number of keys we carry). While the sea fossils we were told we would see at Manqui Malal may not quite have lived up to expectations, we took resolve in our ability to lock our helmets and jackets to the bike and explore the rocky terrain wearing our boots and pants. Turns out our motorcycle boots make for good hiking shoes.

We rode into a small town ostensibly dedicated to greeting visitors on entry to Nequen province and the scenery began change almost as suddenly. We had previously been in volcano territory - to our right the crater tops were visible on the horizon and to our left the cliff faces were close enough to take in the red hues on the rock faces. As we left Mendoza province the colours changed to shades of taupe; unfortunately there are only so many photo stops we can take so this inadequate description of what was some impressive scenery will have to do!

Volcanoes taken on the back of the bike

A long day of riding and we stopped in Chos Malal for the night in a motel unit-cum hostel. It's funny how your perspective on things changes. What was a pretty basic motel was to us luxurious after a week in a dorm room and two nights camping with only cold showers. And plain pasta with tomato sauce is much tastier when ordered in Spanish without even a menu on offer! Fortunately the second petrol station we stopped in at Chos Malal had petrol or we may have been staying a little while longer.